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I should be clear that I am in Portland, Oregon where the cost of living is not what one might find in Silicon Valley. Which raises an interesting point related to the posting from Manhattan and the hype of the journalist regarding TW salaries (or salaries in any other field). 100K in one part of the country just isn't what it is in another. (On the other hand, maybe we should all move to the Rocky Mountain Chapter.) You can be far better off in Portland making 85K than you are in Manhattan or San Francisco making 30% more than that (particularly if your bought your house ten years ago). And, truth to tell, I've seen plenty of postings in Portland in the 40K range.
Oddly enough, I'm also one of those folks who has a history of cozying up to very high income. My feedback is that it isn't necessarily worth it unless your income is your identity. Usually there's a reason you're making that kind of income. You're not just smart, well-educated, and experienced, but you're relationship to your work is different than it might otherwise be. (I'm about to go into a work/life balance rant . . .) Suffice it to say that the wake up call for me came one day when I was in my home office watching my gardener do what I wished I was doing. That said, there is probably a time for that kind of orientation to work in most of our lives.
I completely concur with your last few sentences below, Gene. The pendulum is now at the other extreme. I'm not sure either extreme is good for the profession or the audience.
To the person who posted the link, unless you are drastically underpaid for your market, take the article with a grain of salt. Feature writing is a racket.
I've used up most of my cliches for the day, so--back to it.
-- Jean
Gene Kim-Eng wrote:
> In Silicon Valley and other major tech centers it is not unusual to see
> individual contributors of both genders making $100k or more in
> direct-hire salary (I know because I've been the one signing the
> papers to bring some of them onboard). But yes, most of those have
> years of experience, and advanced technical degrees in fields related
> to the subject matter being documented. And yes, if these very
> senior people worked for me they did to some extent or another
> have project lead responsibilities even if they didn't manage people.
> During the slump of the early part of this decade many of them
> saw reduced opportunities and some idle periods, but all of them
> are still in the field and none have suffered significant reductions in
> their earning power.
>
> I think there will be a shortage of "highly qualified" technical
> writers in coming years, but I don't think abandonment of the
> field by today's "highly qualified" senior tech writers will be the
> major factor, or even *a* major one. I think the major factors
> will be (a) retirement (because most of the superstar writers I
> know are in their 50's or older now) and (b) significant increases
> in the technical requirements employers apply in defining what
> constitutes a "highly qualified" technical writer. During the
> dot-com years we often saw people we considered utterly
> unqualified raking in absurd amounts of money to generate
> the most rudimentary output; I think the pendulum is now
> at the other extreme, and we will see companies demanding
> unnecessarily extensive technical backgrounds for some time
> before finally (I hope) arriving at a balance between technical
> and communications skills.
>
> Gene Kim-Eng
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jean Richardson" <jean -at- bjrcom -dot- com>
>
> > Contractors can definitely gross six-figures, but that is not commensurate with a salary. The journalist may not have understood
> > that. (Contractors' expenses and benefits come out of their gross.)
> >
> > It's been a while since I've seen an STC salary survey. However, it seems to me that getting up around six figures required a
> > combination of a large number of years of experience, an advanced degree, managing a large and/or distributed team, and being of
> > the correct gender. (That ought to get the fingers flying.) 'Fess up, Candis, you had three of those four in that job as I
> > remember. ;) And, because of the slide in the stature of the profession, highly paid TW jobs at any level are hard to come by,
> > though the hassles remain the same.
> >
> > I hear that there will be a shortage of TW's in the future. I wonder what the profession will be like then. Some of the shortage
> > will be generated by senior people who worked hard to leave the field as salaries, rates, and the professional stature of the
> > field slid.
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